Zacuto Z-Finder And Rode Mic Installation On A Canon 7D

If you find it difficult to shoot video with a DSLR (aka HDSLR) straight out of the box, then I've got some accessories that will help out alot. DSLR camera bodies were designed for photo shooting so the ergonomics are far from ideal for video production. My experience with the Canon EOS 7D has been a challenge at times but I’m still learning new techniques with the camera.
I know many of you are considering switching to a DSLR, but if you've only shot with video cameras in the past, here are some of the things to consider before using a DSLR for video production:
There ...

Canon 7D vs HDCam – Preliminary Test

Update: I've revised the original video and did some color correction to it. So after you read this post and watch the video, see Canon 7D vs HDCam - Preliminary Test Revisited. The difference is quite amazing!
The other day, we took out a Canon 7D and a Sony HDW-700/1080 to compare HD video shot with both cameras. This is a preliminary test and we're going to do another one sometime soon. One of the problems we had was that the 7D was on a photo tripod with a grip release on the head so panning/tilting was very difficult to keep ...

Create Professional Looking Videos Without Any Software Or Editing Experience

Now anyone can become a video producer and sell awesome looking videos without any editing experience or knowledge of any editing software! Yes, it's true! Anyone can create slick, professional looking videos while investing relatively very little time in front of the computer with Animoto!
I am jealous to say that even I cannot recreate the quality of videos produced by Animoto without spending hours and hours in an editing program layering graphics, images and videos.
Before I get into too much detail about Animoto, check out this beautiful full-length wedding video produced by SchmidtPhoto.com which incorporates photos and HD video shot with a Canon 5d ...

We're storing more and more files on our computer these days. And not only are we storing more... files are getting bigger and bigger. Music, videos and email attachments quickly eat up hard drive space, especially when you're working with HD video. When you're running low on space on your desktop or laptop computer, the 750GB Western Digital My Passport Essential SE Ultra-portable Hard Drive can help. It is super compact and offers

Creating Reflections in Photoshop

There are many ways to create reflections in Photoshop. In this tutorial, I’ll go through the method I used when working on graphics for an automotive related TV commercial.
Open your image in Photoshop. This happens to be a

I had been meaning to post my one year report back in October when my site was actually a year old. Now it is exactly one year and 2 months since I created my site. Overall, I am extremely happy with what I was able to accomplish on my very first niche website. If this is the first time you’re reading my Niche Site Duel updates, then I encourage you to read my first update where I explain that I had no experience creating or monetizing websites.

The image above is a freeze frame of one of the videos I made for the niche site with my Canon EOS 7D shot on a green screen.

Like many people getting into internet marketing, I had almost quit at one point. But after a few months of letting the site sit dormant, I decided to really put in some effort before throwing in the towel. I ended up finishing the site and monetizing it about 5 months after I initially installed WordPress. My previous updates explain in detail what I’ve done so far… so with this report, I’m going to show you current stats after one year online.

Earnings

I have to say that I am pretty happy with the earnings for now especially because this site runs on autopilot. My only method of monetization is through a single affiliate program though Animoto. As you can see from the screenshot of my Animoto account, the monthly income fluxuates but there are a few months read more…

A few months ago, I posted a how-to video on how you can connect a Canon 7D or other DSLR camera to a portable DVD player and use it as a cheap external monitor for shooting DSLR video. While the solution was both effective and inexpensive, it did not achieve the ideal results. It was usable but not as good as a dedicated HDMI external monitor because I had to use the analog output of my camera.

In another review, I demonstrated a better solution: the IKAN VX9 HDMI external monitor. You can see my video review here. It’s a nice monitor and offers many professional features. However, it is expensive. At $1000, you’d better be shooting lots of decent paying gigs to pay this one off!

Lilliput 668GL 7-Inch External HDMI Monitor

While the above solutions will do the job, there are drawbacks to each. The DVD player solution only offers analog monitoring while the IKAN VX9 is quite expensive. In between those two options is the Lilliput 668GL 7″ on-camera Field HD Monitor for DSLRs with HDMI Y/PbPr and Composite Input.

Why is the Lilliput monitor a great choice? First, it costs about the same as a portable DVD player. The Lilliput 668GL costs $200. 2nd, it offers HDMI input as well as composite and Y/PbPr inputs. It offers the most flexibility at the lowest cost. If you only shoot projects on a part-time basis, you can put this monitor to work in other situations until you need it for a shoot:

Use this as your external DSLR monitor

Connect directly to a DVD player

Use in your car as part of an entertainment system

Connect your video gaming system

Use as a CCTV monitor

Use as a 2nd mini computer monitor

Audio Video Connections

Even though this is a fairly inexpensive external monitor, the Lilliput 668GL does offer some professional features like read more…

A while back, I posted instructions on how to copy a DVD in Edius 5. Today, I am updating the instructions for how to copy a DVD with Edius 6 Disc Capture. In reality, the Disc Capture function doesn’t exist in Edius 6… or at least it’s not called Disc Capture anymore.

Here are the step-by-step instructions to rip or copy DVD video files so you can edit with them in Edius 6:

Step 1: Click on VIEW>Source Browser

Step 2: Insert DVD into your computer. Your DVD will mount and you can see it under the Audio CD/DVD folder. On my computer, the optical drive is labelled E:

This DVD has 4 tracks and you’ll see them appear on the window to the right. read more…

Over the past year, I learned some great skills to help me get into internet marketing… resulting in generating my first dollars online. I had been a fan of Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income blog and I soaked up everything I could about blogging and internet marketing. When Pat’s Niche Site Duel challenge was presented, I knew I had to follow along either in public or private. I decided that I’d do it publicly and present my updates on Pat’s site along with all the other participants.

At the time I started, I had not made any money online. I had one website… the one you’re on now. I had never performed any keyword research or SEO for that matter! So I made up my mind that this was going to be an excellent learning opportunity. Something profound Pat said was that by documenting his progress, it made him accountable to see the project through… and that’s the attitude I took. It was the motivation behind my entire niche site project. Whether I made any money or not was not my goal. The real goal for me was to learn new skills and actually take action.

I knew this would be a launching platform for future online projects. I had taken this type of approach in other things in the past and it has benefitted me greatly… mostly in my career, but in a different way. I am constantly learning new skills in my job to stay on top of current trends and software in my profession. In documenting my journey of creating my first niche site, I thought I could go back and review what I did and possibly be able to repeat the process. Now it is a year later and I am getting ready to post my one year results. Looking back with what I know now about niche sites, there were some things that I didn’t do right in the beginning. But that didn’t matter. This whole process gave me a year to get “hands on” experience to make mistakes and figure what I could’ve done better. A year is way too long to spend on just one site but I needed the time to get to where I’m at now.

And you know what? It paid off! I haven’t touched my niche site in about 4 months but it’s making a consistent income right now. You can see my most current Niche Site Duel updates here. I will work on the site again in the future and plan to occasionally document the evolution of the site.

I’m very satisfied with the results from my first monetized site but it is only the start. But how do I continue this momentum? This month, I am creating 3 sites simultaneously using a new strategy I learned and I will be documenting it in a series I call the Niche Video Challenge. The reason I’m keeping a journal of this new project is to help keep me motivated like it did in Pat’s Niche Site Duel. However, this new challenge is not being published anywhere except here on this site. I’m not documenting it for the publicity necessarily; it’s to keep me personally accountable for what I said I’m going to do and to keep me on the task.

Am I going to do this for every project? No. But I will do plan on doing it every once in awhile when I need the extra motivating factor to see my projects to completion! In conclusion, one of the biggest lessons I took away from the original Duel was the documentation of the task which is my biggest motivator in my online endeavors. Everyone needs motivation to get things done at times and I’ve found mine when it comes to my online projects!

Today, I am starting a new challenge for myself. After some success participating in the Niche Site Duel, I’m ready to use what I’ve learned in the past plus methods from a recently purchased training course to create a new income generating niche site. I will be following the methods described in the Niche Video Tycoon training course.

What makes this training so unique is that the keyword research tactics in Niche Video Tycoon goes against what every other online marketer teaches. What I mean is that usually, you’d want to build a website that has a lot of search volume for keywords that you want to rank for in Google. In this challenge, I am going to be targeting low (extremely low) search volume keywords. As you’ll see shortly, the keywords I’m going for have less than 1000 searches a month!

Part of the reason for documenting my process here is to help me stay motivated and stick with my plan. It worked out with the Niche Site Duel and I hope it does the same for me on this project. A secondary reason to keep track of my progress is that later, I could possibly turn these notes into instructions for a virtual assistant to follow so I can automate and repeat the process with future websites. If this course helps generate a $500-$1000 a month income from a single website, then I will definitely be building more of these.

Overview

Here’s a condensed version of the tasks I’ll be performing:

Find a low volume seed keyword

Find 7-15 related keywords which also have low volume searches

Build a WordPress site with pages targeting each keyword

Make a video targeting each keyword and embed into the corresponding pages

Build backlinks to each page

Add an opt-in form on the site with a free give-away

Create an email autoresponder series

Create a free giveaway to entice subscriptions

Create a 2-3 hour video-based training product to sell

Create an upsell product for an additional charge

For about a week, I studied the process in Niche Video Tycoon and found a book at Amazon.com that is in my niche. That is one of the “green light” indicators to go ahead and build one of these sites. The niche I’m pursuing is in a growing trend and I only found 2 paperback books on Amazon that are directly related to my niche. At Clickbank, I found one ebook for $27 that is an exact match for my niche and about 15 vaguely related products. The Clickbank product is cheap compared to the price I’ll charge for my info product. That’s the beauty of creating a video based product because the perceived value is higher. I then went to Market Samurai to begin my search for keywords.

Before I go any further, I want to let you know that I will not be revealing my keywords in this challenge as I did in the Niche Site Duel. Thank you for understanding. One inportant thing to look for in the keyword research is the title competition. In Market Samurai’s keyword research tool, I’ll check mark the SEOTC box to get that info. I’ll be looking for keywords with an SEOTC of 5000 or less… if its less than 1000, even better. Without showing you my keywords, I’ll reveal the stats on the keywords I found in my niche:

Keywords

Searches: 590 – SEOTC: 1410

Searches: 320 – SEOTC: 1250

Searches: 260 – SEOTC: 77

Searches: 260 – SEOTC: 454

Searches: 260 – SEOTC: 35

Searches: 260 – SEOTC: 380

Searches: 210 – SEOTC: 772

Searches: 210 – SEOTC: 59

Searches: 210 – SEOTC: 1830

Searches: 210 – SEOTC: 15

Searches: 170 – SEOTC: 7

Searches: 170 – SEOTC: 1710

Searches: 140 – SEOTC: 8

Searches: 140 – SEOTC: 1910

Searches: 140 – SEOTC: 66

Searches: 1600 – SEOTC: 11000 (might not be used)

Searches: 1000 – SEOTC: 6120 (might not be used)

Each keyword is related to keyword #1. To me, it looks like I should be able to rank at least in the top 10 for my list of keywords. I’m staying pretty conservative on my estimates because I don’t want to get too over-confident in my ranking skills. Here’s a look at the competition of the top 5 keywords in my list:

Some of the keywords have quite a few backlinks to them and higher page rank than I’d normally like to see but the “on page” factors look good and most of the sites aren’t even targeting my keyword. I’m still experimenting with ranking sites so we’ll see if my data analyzing skills measure up in a month or two.

Picking A Domain Name

I don’t know why this is so hard for me but I’m agonizing over the domain name for my site. I keep doing different combinations of the keywords and I’m being very unproductive because of the time I’m spending on this. But I eventually came to a decision. For the domain name, I chose keyword #1. You might be wondering why I have keywords #16 and #17 in my list. Well, those 2 words are definitely related and I’d love to rank for them but the SEOTC is too high so I’m going to keep those on the backburner for now. In the end, I chose keyword number 1 because I’m able to get an exact match .com domain.

Building This Site Will Be Different For Me

One major thing that will be different when I’m building this site is that I will be outsourcing some of the work. I will not be writing all the articles for this site which removes a huge burden right off the top. This means I’ll have content for my site shortly after I’ve got WordPress installed. I’m also paying a friend to shoot some pictures and video that I will use on the site. The reason is that he lives 5 minutes from the location where I need the images shot… whereas I’d have to drive at least an hour to get to that same location. This saves me at least half a day!

But for now, I’m off to GoDaddy to get my domain and start the next part of the process.

Let’s Spice Things Up A Bit!

Actually, to compound the income potential and to make this project really interesting, I am not only creating the website I described above… but will be creating 2 additional sites in 2 other niches at the same time. So when I’m done, I’ll have a total of three websites built around the Niche Video Tycoon course. However, I will be mainly documenting the step-by-step progress of the first website. I hope you stay with me and see how this all turns out. See you in the next update!

If you’re in the market for a 3D HDTV, right now, here is a deal where you can get 4 pairs of Toshiba FPT-AG01U 3D Glasses for free! These are the high quality 3D glasses that have the Active Shutter liquid crystal lenses and feature a sturdy resin frame and comfortable arms and a nosepad. These are powered by a CR2032 coin battery.

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I’m a huge Photoshop fan and user so when I came across this sneak peak at what the guys at Adobe are working on, I had to share it here. I remember just before Photoshop CS5 came out how blown away I was at their Content-Aware Fill that allowed users to remove objects in a photo and automatically replace it with the background that would be behind it. And now at the Adobe MAX 2011 conference, we find that they have been working on a Photoshop image deblurring feature.

As indicated in the video, there is no official word on when or which future version of Photoshop this will be included in. But, as you’ll see from the cheers of the crowd, this feature is amazing! The Photoshop image deblurring feature as the name implies can take a blurry image and “unblur” it. You have to see the video. Unfortunately, the video quality isn’t the best but you can see it work and by the reaction of the audience, this feature doesn’t disappoint. Check it out for yourself!

The big thing for me is that it shoots 720p HD video and it has one touch recording. This means it has a dedicated video button for instant recording. No more switching dials to get into video mode. And the Sony Alpha NEX-3 features auto-focus and auto exposure while recording if you want this camera to behave more like a camcorder.

If you’ve ever used a wide angle lens before, you know how useful it can be. This is a great opportunity to get into DSLR video while getting a free wide angle lens at the same time! At times, I wonder if I should sell my Canon 7D and get a smaller camera like this. I often find it is too much of a hassle to carry around a full size DSLR. So this looks like an affordable alternative to DSLR video.

If you’re a fan of Tron Legacy, you’ll love this! Parker Brothers Custom Choppers has built a REAL LIFE electric power Tron light cycle. The replica from the movie started out as a gas powered model but was recently re-introduced as an electric light bike.

At the heart of this machine is a 96 volt electric motor powered by lithium ion batteries. It can reach a top speed in excess of 100 MPH and has a 100 mile range. Battery charge time is a mere 35 minutes! This light cycle looks great on the streets in the day but is super awesome at night when it’s all lit up!

The cost of the original gas powered cycle is $55,000 but as the title of this post indicates, you can get one for free! How? Well this is where your skills as a video producer come in!

2. Submit a video no longer than 3 minutes, indicating why you deserve the light cycle.

3. Semi-finalist videos will be placed on their website and the public will vote on the winner.

This is the perfect opportunity to put the HD video capabilities of your HDSLR or compact digital camera to good use for a chance to win a great prize!

It doesn’t matter if you’re using a top selling DSLR camera, HD digital camera or HD camcorder, video contests are always a great way to get great prizes or recoup the cost of your camera. In this case, you could be the proud owner of a Parker Brothers custom electric power Tron Light Cycle!

I assume you are here because you have a bent pin in your 7D and you might be wondering how much this repair will cost you? If your camera is under warranty, you might be able to get Canon to fix it for you for free but don’t count on it. I’ve heard stories both ways where Canon has fixed the pin for free while for others, they will not cover the cost.

My Canon 7D was repaired locally at Photo-tronics, Inc. in Seattle. As you can see from the receipt below, the total cost ended up being $366.83. From looking at their website, you can send in your equipment for repair if you don’t live in Seattle.

So you can realistically expect around that much if you were to take it to a local repair shop. They said the only way to fix this problem was to completely replace the compact flash assembly.

It only took a couple of days since they had the part in stock but it sat in their facility for about a week until my friend had time to go pick it up.

The cost is nothing to sneeze at though. For the price of the repair, you could get some nice accessories for your camera like a Zacuto Z-Finder or even a nice camera slider. Next time, I’ll have to insert the compact flash card a little slower and hopefully avoid this from happening again.

Cheap DSLR Accessories

About

The Render Q offers tips and tutorials for DSLR video and HD digital cameras. Our main goal is to demonstrate the fact that you don't need an HD camcorder to shoot HD video. Are you a pro or just starting to shoot video with your camera? We'll show you what we're doing with our cameras and teach you step by step!